We’re all over the map this time around, from the Pacific Northwest to upstate New York, to the heart of Texas to the city of angels and beyond. And, like several of the songwriters included here, I find myself contemplating the passage of time as I write about this music of the here and now.
Pete Droge — Fade Away Blue
This one’s personal, especially for Pete but also for me. Droge and I met a few days after I’d moved to his hometown of Seattle in 1991; he was 22 and already a great songwriter. I helped him take a few solo-career steps until he bolted out of the gate with a hit single on his 1994 major-label debut. Then No Depression took off and both of our lives were crazy busy for the next decade. We reconnected in 2006 when I wrote an ND feature on his mesmerizing album Under The Waves, which as it turns out is the last time he made a solo record. Until now. Three duo releases with his wife, Elaine Summers, filled the gap, but Droge also was dealing with the effects of chronic fatigue syndrome. Then came emotional upheaval when Droge, who was adopted, went looking for his birth mother, only to find she’d died a few months earlier.
Out of all that bloomed Fade Away Blue, the best album of Droge’s career — largely because it’s so personal. He worked through his feelings about his birth family with a suite of three songs at the heart of this record. “Song For Barbara Ann” is heartbreaking for both its message and its music, Pete’s voice breaking as he sings his mother’s name in the chorus: “Hard to believe it was over before it began/ I just wasn’t part of your plan, Barbara Ann.” He’s also empathetic toward her dilemma, as he makes clear on “Gypsy Rose,” in which he imagines her wayward youth and prodigal-daughter return home: “She could barely hold her own/ She gave the baby to a good home/ And fluttered away like a butterfly.” There’s a raw simplicity to “Lonely Mama” and its bittersweet lament: “How I wish I could have known you/ We’d be twirling around in the summer sun, freak flags flown high.”
Droge also lost both his adoptive parents in recent years, and he pays perfect tribute to them on the album’s opening track and first single, “You Called Me Kid.” Musically, Droge’s great gift has always been an innate sense of hooks so naturally appealing that it sounds like they must have always been there. “Kid” catches that wave and sets it to words we all would be lucky to find in praise of loved ones: “Never in this life could anybody find a more generous or precious gift to give.” Musically, the title track may be even better, thanks to an indelible guitar riff that carries the entire song. Droge also writes poignantly about his marriage to Summers in “Skeleton Crew” and “Bare Trees,” acknowledging ups and downs but concluding, “Nobody else coming to the rescue/ It’s something that we’re gonna get through together.” Summers co-wrote six of the album’s 10 songs and contributes crucial backing vocals, alongside a stellar backing cast that included co-producer Paul Bryan, guitarist Rusty Anderson, drummer Jay Bellerose and pedal steel ace Greg Leisz.
